Secure connectivity is the key to future success said Samsung
Businesses have three years to get securely connected or risk being left behind if they fail to cater for the unforgiving swift change and innovation taking place in the digital landscape, according to a new study from Samsung.
With an estimated 7.3 billion connected IoT devices by 2020 [Gartner, Internet of Things (IoT) Study 2015], the need to secure every individual device will become critical. This new open economy will be characterised by a deep cooperation with freelance workers, routine embedding of start up driven innovation, and a new kind of collaboration between former competitors.
Yet, said Samsung, the reality is that many organisations are still well behind the curve in terms of the speed at which they adopt new technologies that will ease their passage into more open ways of doing business.
The company stated that, “there is a very clear danger that technology is running ahead of the game, and the pace of change of technology is far exceeding the speed at which many organisations are changing their behaviours and working practices, so businesses need to wake up to that now”.
Not only will there be infrastructure hurdles and planning issues to overcome, but the real challenge for businesses, according to Samsung, is how they connect up all the new technologies to meet the needs of a new cohort of talent. It stated: “Often described as Millennials and fast becoming the default decision makers within organisations, this group have come to expect consumer-driven technologies and ideas in their working lives too; everything from virtual and augmented reality to an emerging generation of personal artificial intelligences.”
Samsung added: “Predictive intelligence is a particular growth area that is going to have a profound effect on businesses over the next three years and it’s important that organisations put in place the right security layers to maximise the benefits in an open, yet secure way. Businesses need to build customisable security platforms that span the entire ecosystem of products and allow companies to open their borders to new opportunities more confidently. Samsung Knox is the most powerful security platform of this kind.”
Graham Long, VP of enterprise business at Samsung, commented: “Samsung’s ‘Open Economy’ report highlights just how far technology and the way we work has evolved in recent years, identifying a huge shortfall in how prepared businesses are to meet the challenges of this new landscape. Having the right security processes in place will be critical as organisations build the foundations needed to become more open, inclusive and productive in this new way of doing business. One of the reasons for this is as our reliance on using and holding confidential information on smartphones increases, so will the number and complexity of threats by hackers targeting these devices. However, finding a mobile security solution that is both resilient and user-friendly can be a challenge, which is why Samsung designed Knox, a defence-grade security system, to allow businesses to secure, manage and customise their mobile devices.”
Many unknowns remain as companies start to realise their visions of a more productive future, the report claimed, pointing to machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that present opportunities but also levels of risk that have not yet been fully quantified, according to research from The Future Laboratory, which formed the basis of the report.
The company added: “That makes simultaneous investments in secure platforms which open borders to new technologies even more critical. By making those investments now, organisations will be able to safely integrate any new entity into the business environment; not just machines, but a new generation of people too.”
